What did your house have growing up that caused you to live differently?

[Dave Gray]

I had great parents, so no shade.  But they had their issues like anyone and it affected some things I do now.


My parents didn't have organized tools or a workspace, ever.  My Dad wasn't handy.  We had all of the things you'd ever need.  If you wanted to hammer a nail, we had a hammer.  We probably had 5 hammers.  But you wouldn't be able to find it, so you'd have to hammer a nail with a wrench that you found left out in the rain.  And you'd have to do it on the corner of a bench that was piled with other tools and crap.

It was just normal life for me and I didn't think much of it.  Now that I have my own home, I can tell you right now where every tool I have is.  I'm very particular about everything having a place to be put away and while it's not OCD levels or curating, I have items logically grouped.  I have space to work.   My tools are generally maintained.

What did your parents do that caused you to do things another way?

[Fau Teixeira]

My parents smoked cigarettes.

I do not and will not ever.

[MaineDolFan]

When we moved from California to Maine we had a cellar (we only had this weird crawl space in Cali) and a coal furnace.  Ever see that awful "Christmas Story" movie everyone seems to love, and gets played around the clock on TNT or TBS or something?  The dad fights with the furnace?  That was us, only in the 80's.

It was less than awesome.

You'd think that, alone, would pour enough smoke into the house for my parents.  But nope.  They both loved their cigarettes.  My dad was a Vantage guy, my mom loved Pall Mall.  Between the toxins rolling up from the basement and those two human waste stacks there was always a haze of smoke hanging in the air.  How I don't have COPD, or emphysema, I have no clue...but I have friends who weren't allowed to come over because of how they smelled when they left.

My house is clean AF.  Bright, airy, ceiling fans going at all times.  I won't even allow anyone to burn a candle.  

[masterfins]

We didn't have a car when I was growing up, so that's probably the main thing; other than inventions like cordless telephones, cable TV, remote controls, microwave ovens, computers,, etc.

[Pappy13]

I had great parents, so no shade.  But they had their issues like anyone and it affected some things I do now.

I think that works both ways Dave. My dad was super handy. He could fix anything. Fixed washers, dryers and microwaves for a living. Maintained all of our cars, we never sent them to a mechanic. I never learned to work on a car because he did it himself and I really didn't have any desire to learn. There's lots of times I wish I would have spent more time with my dad working on cars and other stuff so I would have learned a little bit of what he knew, but then again maybe it wouldn't really have mattered because working on cars and stuff today is a lot different from when I was growing up and honestly, I still have no desire to do it.

On the flip side, I bought my first personal computer when I was in high school. Commodore Vic 20. Taught myself how to program in Basic by reading books on it. I couldn't even get my dad to sit down at a computer even when we had one. He bought one so that he could keep track of his business fixing washers and dryers, but my mom used the PC, he didn't. She used to work for the newspaper and had used one for years but I never even knew that till later, so I didn't get that from her, that's just what appealed to me.

So maybe it really doesn't have much to do with how you grew up but just that you are different people. I'm sure you did say that you weren't going to do it the way your dad did, but maybe it was going to be that way regardless of what he did.

[Dave Gray]

So maybe it really doesn't have much to do with how you grew up but just that you are different people. I'm sure you did say that you weren't going to do it the way your dad did, but maybe it was going to be that way regardless of what he did.

Maybe.

I feel like it's a combination.  I have a ton of great habits that I got from my parents.  There is so much that they did in running a home, raising us, unwritten rules of the house, etc -- they are a core feature of my family.  I feel like the things I recognized that worked for us, I try to instill here, too.  But the things that didn't also shocked me into doing things a different way.

I'm sure I have a whole host of flaws that I'm passing on to my kids right now.